Goal of the Challenge:As a counterpoint to the Cult of the New, this challenge encourages people to play each game several times to explore and experience them in depth. There is no rush to find the optimum strategy on your first play, or read all of the cards beforehand. Instead, each play reveals something more and something different, you get to try various strategies, and everyone's strategies evolve with their understanding and learning of the game. If you are tired of constantly learning new rules when running after the latest hotness, never really learning various strategies to any game, and needing to relearn the rules of old games because it's been too long since they were played, this is the challenge for you.

The Challenge: Play 10 games 10 times each in 2015-Anyone can join at any time in 2015.-There are 2 versions of the Challenge, Normal & Hardcore, which will be explained below. Note: They are separate challenges, so a single play can only be counted for one list or the other if you participate in both challenges. You can have the same games on both lists, and even have the exact same list for both challenges, but you'd have to play each game 20 times. The key difference with the Hardcore challenge is that you are not allowed to change your list of games once you have started. However, you may downgrade your Hardcore list to Normal at any point, but you will not be able to go back to Hardcore once you make the change.

How to join the Normal Challenge:1. Add an item to the geeklist, either a game from your list or create your own Geeklist and enter its ID.2. In the text field for the item, indicate in big bold letters that you are doing the Normal Challenge and then write down your ten games, if you've decided. You do not have to decide your 10 games ahead of time. You could even wait until you've finished playing 10 games 10 times each before posting to the challenge.3. You may swap out games as you like. As long as you play 10 game 10 times by the end of 2015, you've succeeded at the challenge.4. For each game, use whatever method you like for tracking the 10 plays.5. You may include any plays that happened in 2015, even if they were before you joined the challenge.6. When you have completed the challenge, played your 10 games 10 times, send me a GeekMail with a link to your item on this Geeklist. (Click on the number of your entry and it will give you a permanent hyperlink.) I must get a Geekmail by January 7th, 2016 for you to be eligible for prizes. Microbadges will still be awarded after that date, but not later than May 2016.7. If you have any questions, please send me a Geekmail or post in the comment section at the very bottom of this Geeklist. I will not be able to keep up with all the comments on the individual entries.

How to join the Hardcore Challenge:1. Add an item to the geeklist, either a game from your list or create your own Geeklist and enter its ID.2. In the text field for the item, indicate in big bold letters that you are doing the Hardcore Challenge and then write down your ten games including one alternate.3. To complete the challenge, you must play 10 of the 11 games you've specified at least 10 times. You may not swap in/out any other games.4. Comment on your item and copy the list of 11 games into it. Do not edit this comment. I will compare this unedited comment to your final list of games played to see if you changed anything or not. 5. For each game, use whatever method you like for tracking the 10 plays.6. You may not include any plays that happened before you joined the challenge.7. When you have completed the challenge, played your 10 games 10 times, send me a GeekMail with a link to your item on this Geeklist. (Click on the number of your entry and it will give you a permanent hyperlink.) I must get a Geekmail by January 7th, 2016 for you to be eligible for prizes. Microbadges will still be awarded after that date, but not later than May 2016.8. If you have any questions, please send me a Geekmail or post in the comment section at the very bottom of this Geeklist. I will not be able to keep up with all the comments on the individual entries

Challenge AssistantSince I'm having trouble keeping up with the challenge, Noreen Gwilliam is helping me out. Please be respectful as she's volunteered to help me out.

Prizes:At the end of 2015, anyone who has completed either the Normal or Hardcore challenge will get a prize. I’m going to start with Geek Gold. I’m putting in 120 GG to get started and will add to it any GG donated to this Geek List. (User victoryzine donated the 100 GG.) The distribution of the GG will be dependent on how much is collected. If there is more than the number of finishers, then the GG will be distributed evenly to all the finishers. But if there is less GG than finishers, then it will be given away in equal chunks randomly among the finishers. This will be given out sometime in January

While I will be tracking my progress here, I will not be eligible for the prizes. And depending upon how the year goes, I may include more prizes, but no promises right now. I am also open to anyone who would like to donate prizes. Just send me a Geekmail.

MicrobadgesA big thanks goes out to a very talented Microbadge designer Jonna Hind (Kattvippa). She's designed all five of the Microbadges below.

Participant Microbadge: This one is purchasable and is not specific to the year.

Hardcore Participant Microbadge: This one is purchasable and is not specific to the year.

Completed Normal Award: This one will be awarded by the admins to all those who succeed at the Normal challenge.

Completed Hardcore Award: This one will be awarded by the admins to all those who succeed at the Hardcore challenge.

If you're a fan of the 10x10 Challenge, then you can buy this Microbadge:

Details of what does and does not count:--If you play a game multiple times in a row, each completed game counts as a play. Partial games do not count, but can be added together to count as whole games.

--Feel free to include expansions in your games. It is suggested that when playing expansions that cannot be played on their own, list the entry under the main game. No need to specify the expansions used at any point. Unless your goal is to play an expansion 10 times then list the expansion as the entry.

--For expansions that can be played on their own as well as games in a series that can be mixed, you have two options:1. List them as separate games, count their plays separately.2. List them together as one game, count their plays together.

--Any games in a series that cannot be combined count as their own game. For example, the Tempest line of games are distinctly different, even though they are in a series.

--Feel free to play your games in any order that you like. You don't have to start with #1 and play all 10 games before going to #2. Unless that is how you want to do it.

--Role-playing games count. Each session counts as a play. So if you meet 10 times, that's 10 plays.

--For games that have scenarios, playing through a scenario counts as a play.

--Since a war game scenario can last hours, much longer than most board games, a play is counted for at least a two-hour block of time. It is up to each person to decide what a play means to them because this is a personal challenge, so you can make a play of a war game a longer period of time, up to a completed scenario.

--Online/digital games count regardless if you are playing against a person or the computer AI. The digital and physical games have to have the same rules (thus the same components) It also must have the same name as the original. It can't be a differently named game with similar game-play. "Normal" video games do not count for this challenge.

--Solo play counts.

--CCGs/LCGs count as they're tabletop games. Anything classified as a tabletop game counts for this challenge.

--If you participated in the challenge last year, feel free to include any games you played then in this year's challenge. It's a new year, a new start.

NemeStats: Additional Tool to Help Keep Track of PlaysNemeStats (as in "Nemesis Statistics") is a free web application for logging games played among a relatively stable group of players. It takes only a moment and will give you statistics on your win percentage, average rank in games, who is your Nemesis and who is your Minion, etc. http://nemestats.com

The h-index of 2015 15+ Challenge (15x15 in 2015 Challenge)You can keep going and try to play at least 15 games 15 times in 2015 (225 plays), and show your participation with the badge. This challenge requires that you link to to your logged plays in your list (either individually, or for all your plays in 2015). You don't need to list the 15 games beforehand, and you can include any/all plays done for the 10x10 challenge(s). You can follow the other 15ers' progress at 2015 15x15 list of lists. When you've completed it, geekmail Jack (not Sarah) with a link to your list, to receive in 2015 June, or 2016 January. This challenge is separate from the 10x10 challenges and does not qualify for any of the prizes listed above.

As the year progresses and I see that we’re nearing 10 plays of a game, I’ll add it here. In the meantime, check out my geeklist for comments on the games we’ve played. This normal list may also include board games that I play on my new iPad mini.

Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game2015-12-30 (x1): 4p, new stuff!2015-12-20 (x1): 4p, with a betrayer (who I was suspicious of most of the game) - objective to build lots and lots of barricades. Had it mostly finished on the last round as the betrayer started his turn, but then he tanked it.

However, one of the items he had hoarded in his hand was a starter, so he lost anyway. Take that, stinkin traitor! Really fun game.2015-10-10 (x1): 4p, six loyal cards. Ended up with no betrayer and three of us won. Winter has come. Seemed kind of easy despite pulling lots of potentially tough crisis cards. 2015-08-29 (x1): 4p, betrayer didn't have enough food cards, but sabotaged the game in the last round anyway. We exiled him, but the damage was done and we all lost. Really fun game.2015-07-26 (x1): 5p, Too Many Mouths. I won as the betrayer with food, medicine, tool, and gas in my hand, a single survivor, and a weapon equipped. Lots of Crossroads resolved and many of them were bad. I had the last turn of the last round in the game, and had to do very little to drop the last two morale. In fact, I didn't do anything at all - just sat there and let the colony go to crap. Of course, I also withheld a ton of cards that could have saved us from several morale drops earlier in the game. I would have exiled me.2015-07-18 (x1): 4p, more samples objective, with a betrayer. Had the game won on the last round but the betrayer decided to ruin it rather than letting us win - an easy task because the betrayer had previously chosen to accept some police officers deal to get some weapons in exchange for keeping some areas clear. 2015-07-10 (x1): 3p, no betrayer but with one player having a lot of characters and building useless barricades, I was on the verge of calling for exile several times. Ended up with all three of us winning fairly easily on the Raiding Party objective.2015-05-24 (x1): 5p, raiding party, three of us new. Exiled the incorrect person, did terribly on crises, and had morale go to zero in round 2. Betrayer didn't get the secret objective completed so we all lost. Fun game that ended after midnight of a 15 hour Kubla Con gaming day. 2015-05-09 (x1): 2p, kill them hardcore mode, prisoners dilemma variant. I had the zombie killing robot loyal objective and probably lost us a slightly winnable game desperately trying to find a weapon. 2015-02-21 (x1): 3p, with a betrayer, "Kill Them" objective. We failed to use attract effectively and all of us lost. At least the dirty betrayer didn't get the win. 2015-02-07 (x1): 3p, Leave It All Behind, with a betrayer, who couldn't drop morale enough to get the win late in the game despite having all needed items. Two loyal players both won - loyal objectives were Revenge (that doesn't sound very loyal...), and needing to stockpile medicine.

Eldritch Horror2015-12-19 (x1): 2p, 4 investigators. Called it when a loss was mathematically inevitable with one turn to go and too many annoying effects to resolve. Final game of EH for the 2015 10x10. Very glad to be finished with this one - I've learned just how much I don't want to play it again.2015-12-09 (x1): 4 investigators, lost due to doom retreating despite having super powered up characters and killing the monster needed to solve the second mystery. Bummer.2015-10-03 (x1): 4 investigators (Charlie, Lily, Jacqueline, and Jim), Cthulhu. Should have picked better fighters - drew two Rumors cards (Web between worlds and The Wind Walker while Lily was at the far end of the board trying to work on the first mystery (Deep ones attack). All of these required fighting monsters and using clues, and the rumors were followed by several reckonings that ended the game (via web) while there weren't enough clues in hand.

if Jim hadn't picked up a spell that was letting him dole out two damage per turn, the game would have been even more dire.2015-08-08 (x1): 2p, Shub-Niggurath. First mystery was clue-focused and we took WAY too long to spawn some clues and then get them, so we were behind the 8-ball for the next two mysteries. Solved number 2 quickly, and had a shot at number 3, but the world was just too messed up, and doom went to zero with a bunch of reckonings left to resolve.2015-08-07 (x1): 2 investigators, yog-sothoth. Got a fairly easy win after piling up a bunch of reckoning effects that didn't trigger in the later rounds.2015-06-21 (x1): Two investigators, Yog-Sothoth. Had both of the initial investigators die on the same turn, but the next two investigators were kicking butt. They had the final mystery solved, but the slackers who started the investigation had left the world in such a sorry state that the final mythos card did so much damage that it flipped the Ancient One's card, then continued dropping morale afterwards to the point that it lost us the game before we had a change to react. My last few games have been fairly un-fun because they were simply "roll bad all the time" losses. This was a skin-of-your-teeth loss that felt like it would have been winnable if I had just made one or two decisions differently.2015-05-08 (x1): two investigators, Yog-sothoth, another loss but much closer this time. After the doom track went to zero, I had TWO consecutive turns where I was nicely set up to solve the last of the three regular mysteries, and the final big one, and rolled poorly on both of the "easy" research encounters I needed. I think I will have had about enough of this game by the time I hit my 10th play. I enjoy randomness in my games, but this is getting excessive.2015-05-01 (x1): two investigators, Yog-Sothoth. Another loss without completing a single mystery. Delayed, delayed, and more delayed. How can you get rid of a leg injury if you never get a chance to rest because you keep getting delayed?? Delay might be the most obnoxious mechanic in any game that I still enjoy.2015-04-15 (x1): 2 investigators, Yog-Sothoth, lost before even solving the first mystery. Brutal monster spawns with brutal abilities, plus very few success rolls. The world went to crap and it was our fault.2015-02-15 (x1): 2p, Cthulhu, lost decisively due to doom track running out. Needed weapons badly and didn't get any until far too late in the game. Wasted lots of turns not accomplishing much.

Puerto Rico2015-12-31 (x1): iOS, 4p, second place. Played for a goods producing combo but screwed it up and didn't get my large warehouse soon enough.2015-12-31 (x1): iOS, managed to get two points buildings but still miss first place by two points.2015-12-11 (x1): 4p, ios, third place. I suck.2015-12-07 (x1): 2p, iOS, won by a single point. Not my usual 2p partner.2015-10-27 (x1): 2p, iOS digital on a plane (so no craftsman angst variant), won. 2015-10-22 (x1): iOS on a plane. I went bonus building heavy and she just produced crap loads of goods. Lost. 2015-10-04 (x1): 2p, lost by a lot. 2015-10-04 (x1): Revenge for my prior loss on the day, although I think the opponent threw the game so I'd have to put it away. 2015-08-11 (x1): 2p, tied game but I took the tiebreaker on most money. Opponent missed an opportunity to buy a points building that would have easily beaten me.2015-08-04 (x1): 2p, won because opponent missed a chance to captain for big points.

Castles of Mad King Ludwig2015-12-31 (x1): 2p, all secrets modules. Thought I had an easy win in the bag with a big combo move on the last turn, but lost to tons of secret scoring cards.2015-12-31 (x1): 2p, went heavy secret passage strategy and lost. Again. 2015-12-27 (x1): 2p, with secrets. Used 26 room cards. Lost but finished the full moat for the first time and had an awesome looking castle. 2015-12-08 (x1): 2p, all secrets modules. Almost lost to swan combos. 2015-11-26 (x1): 2p, with secrets expansion. Lost. 2015-08-15 (x1): 4p, won on some good downstairs room plays.2015-07-30 (x1): 2p, 22 room cards, won with a heavy basement room strategy. This is one of those situations where the random room removal in the 2p room can be brutal - if a lot of basement rooms didn't come up at the end of the game, I would have lost badly.2015-07-25 (x1): 2p, 26 room cards, lost on an absolute mauling in 350 rooms - opponent got points for both a bonus card and depleting the stack. 2015-07-13 (x1): 3p, won with a lot of hoarded money that got me the extra three points to take the win. 2015-05-24 (x1): 3p, demo version of Secrets expansion. Last place.

Five Tribes2015-05-24 (x1): kubla!!! Won with 191 points in a great 4p game. 2015-04-18 (x1): 2p, win with a heavy assassin strategy2015-04-18 (x1): 2p, win with a lot of genies. Agonizing game because I kept giving money to my opponent by landing on their spaces and activating a genie.2015-03-07 (x1): 2p, won on lots of yellow meeples combined with a genie bonus2015-03-07 (x1): 2p, won on lots of assassins and a huge 83 point camel score. Game ended on running out of camels - a rarity in our 2p games.2015-02-21 (x1): 2p, won through lots of tile control, a big builder combo, and some decent set collection. 2015-02-18 (x1): 2p, W with a heavy vizier/elder focus and Jafaar and Shamhat. 2015-02-14 (x1): 2p, focused on an assassin heavy combo strategy to claim spaces, and lost to piles and piles of merchandise. 2015-02-05 (x1): 2p, lost on a money heavy strategy 2015-01-21 (x1): 2p, got stomped. 2015-01-04 (x1): 2p, win with a money heavy strategy. 2015-01-02 (x1): 2p, won with a two genie scoring bonus combo. 2015-01-01 (x1): 2p game, tightly matched with one player going strong on money and the other on meeples and card sets. Meeples and card sets won the day.

Seasons2015-07-03 (x1): 2p, won the final game of our 10x10 with a rare transmute heavy play. Ended the game with only eight cards in play. Enchantment to make adding cards to your hand cost 5 crystals. 2015-07-01 (x1): 2p, Drought enchantment. Went with a card heavy strategy with doubled Ragfields Helm and got the win. 2015-06-30 (x1): Olafs Knowledge enchantment - lost horribly due to not getting a good energy production going early. 2015-06-28 (x1): 2p, natural selection enchantment. Nice variant to give more control during the draft. Won mostly because I drew a couple high point cards during the game. 2015-06-27 (x1): 2p, with extended experience enchantment. Squeaked out the W. 2015-06-20 (x1): 2p, enchanted kingdoms, enchantment 1 - elemental construction (choose from 18 cards each instead of drafting). Lost due to focusing on energy too much and not generating enough crystals. 2015-06-14 (x1): 2p, lost by a decent margin. Victim of many pvp cards. 2015-05-17 (x1): 2p, was confident I would lose but ended up with the win. 2015-05-09 (x1): Adv cards, 10 card draft. Barely won with end game bonuses from cards. 2015-01-10 (x1): 2p, adv cards, lost to some clever comboing. Played At Cool Stuff in Winter Park, FL.

Alhambra: Big Box2015-06-17 (x1): 2p, variable scores from expansion 5 and money exchange from expansion 1. Lost badly but did have a 21 point wall at game end. 2015-06-14 (x1): Expansion 5, all modules. Quite liked the variable score tiles and thought the rest was take it or leave it. Sultans were my least favorite. 2015-06-07 (x1): 2p, expansion 4. I enjoyed the invaders, and master builders was fine. Treasure chamber and bazaars were both completely dependent upon color vision so I hated them. Nobody bought a bazaar at any point in the game. 2015-06-02 (x1): 2p, expansion 3 with thieves, change, and extra walls. Skipped the merchant expansion because it seemed sort of useless. 2015-05-10 (x1): 2p, all four modules from expansion 2. Quite enjoyed gates, diamonds, and camps. Could do without characters. 2015-05-07 (x1): 2p, dead tie at the end. Fun game with big walls. Played with the currency exchange cards from expansion 1, but skipped the rest of the expansion.2015-04-19 (x1): expansion 1 (all 4 modules), 2p. Lost, partially due to over-emphasizing worker huts that I ended up not needing.2015-04-19 (x1): 2p rematch, same expansion 1, but got the victory this time due to opponent boxing in the Alhambra with too many outer walls2015-03-28 (x1): 2p, don't know exact scores because the scoreboard was bumped, but I was in the lead, and scored higher the rest of the game so called it a win.2015-03-22 (x1): 2p, lost despite scoring a 22 point wall that enclosed almost my entire Alhambra.

7 Wonders2015-12-31 (x1): 2p, won on mega science strategy2015-12-31 (x1): 2015-12-28 (x1): solo, desperate attempt to finish 10x10, tiberiusdw variant from BGG files section. Crushed the AIs 64-35-29.2015-12-28 (x1): solo again, won 58-37-46. AI doesn't seem particularly challenging.2015-12-28 (x1): one more solo, w 51-38-35. AI doesn't emphasize science enough.2015-12-23 (x1): 2p, with Babel - nobody wasted a card putting a Babel tile into play. Never seemed worth it. Won by a bit by using a very powerful Stonehenge Wonder ability to rack up a lot of points.2015-12-13 (x1): 2p, with tower of babel module. Miraculously won despite being 100% convinced I was going to get stomped. I was the only person who used babel tiles.2015-12-12 (x1): 6p, second to last. 2015-11-12 (x1): 2p, just barely lost mostly due to military might, and my lack thereof.2015-11-12 (x1): 2P, won

March of the Ants2015-05-23 (x1): 3p, second place. 2015-04-07 (x1): 2p - fittingly, our last game of the 10x10 was extremely combat heavy, and I lost by failing to produce enough larvae. 2015-04-05 (x1): 2p, won with a larvae / card heavy strategy. 2015-04-02 (x1): 2p, lots of centipede action and ant evolutions. Ran out of eggs, both players had the engines singing. I was in a significant lead but lost two out of the three majorities, and tied for untapped potential. If I had lost that one, I would have lost the game. 2015-03-29 (x1): 3p, dead last after failing to get a good engine going. 2015-03-21 (x1): 2p, tied score, lost because my opponent had more ants in the meadow for the tie breaker. 2015-03-21 (x1): finally a 2p game with some COMBAT. Winner of the fight won the game by a single point, but also made great use of cards and abilities.2015-03-20 (x1): 2p, had my undefeated streak get ruined by lots of great colony goals and other point scoring. Great game!2015-03-11 (x1): 2p, barely eked out the win after realizing I had a tie for most larvae. We both had no eggs left. Big scoring game with some centipede fights. 2015-03-08 (x1): 2p, won 25-17. First game post-Kickstarter. Played without counting the end-of-game bonuses for most larvae, food, and cards, even though they would have increased my lead, because I forgot to mention them during the rules explanation.2015-03-08 (x1): 2p, came from behind by winning largest brood and untold potential at the end.

Wow, everyone is really fast this year. Here's a summary for the NORMAL challenge. I have completed my normal challenge last year on 18/9/14. Going to see if I can do better. If you are interested to follow me on my journey and comment on the progress, you can subscribe to the Geeklist here. Thank you and happy new year to one and all.

I wanted to join this year and make it more about introducing gaming to my eldest, now that he is 3. I also wanted to keep this list free of games that I had on last year's list. Finally, as most of my games are played with my husband, I asked him to pick three.

So, that's that for hardcore. If I happen to get in ten plays of a game for normal, will add them below as I do.

Here's a summary for the HARDCORE challenge. I have completed my hardcore challenge last year on 26/12/14. Going to see if I can do better. If you are interested to follow me on my journey and comment on the progress, you can subscribe to the Geeklist here. Thank you and happy new year to one and all.

I started the challenge a little early on 12/20, but honestly with a 10 month old and a house remodel, there is almost no chance I will complete the challenge, hardcore or otherwise by the end of 2015. But I would like to complete this challenge at some point because I'm certain all ten (eleven) of these games are worth at least ten plays and I think its good to set this goal for myself.

I will be logging my plays on my own geeklist, please feel free to jump in and comment!

aaarg_ink wrote:

I went back and forth a little, and then decided to just start my "nominally hardcore nominally 2015 10x10 challenge" backdated to 12/20. Here's it is: AAArg_ink's 10x10, nominally 2015.

If you don't click through, here's the games...its pretty much a throwback to 2010:AgricolaPuerto RicoCaylusIn the Year of the DragonSaint PetersburgTrans EuropaWildlife AdventureElfenlandAlhambraTroyes (the newest item on this list)Pandemic

58 by the end of January... Figured I should be at about 80 by now, so running a little behind... A little over 320 at the end of March... A little ahead of schedule at this point... Well ahead of schedule right now; I could go halfway through May before playing another game at this point...490 in mid to late May... I could go almost completely through June at this point without playing another game...

I have 12 games on the list at this point... We'll see which ones I actually finish... I'm subtracting the plays from the two least played games from my total to come up with the numbers above...

One more has been added, so there are 13 games on the list, with the lowest 3 being subtracted from the overall total...

End of May and I'm over halfway through this challenge...

Mid June and added game #14 to the list...

Added game #15 to the list in the beginning of July...

Added game #16 to the list near the end of September, and completed it in about 5 days...

In the middle of October, I am running at 1015 games played, with 104 are ones that are not counting, so it leaves me with a total of 911 that count towards the goal... I'm looking good to be done with this challenge sometime in November, even the end of October if I try hard enough... Need to update the attached geeklist in the near future, since I don't think that's been updated since August...

Near the end of November, I'm at 1119 games played, only which 975 count toward this challenge... I'm on the wind down of the challenge and should complete it by the end of the year... Only 25 games to go...

Finished the challenge with a total of 1225 games played on November 30th with Kingdom Builder, a game that took me 3 days to play 100 times...